Five Things That Never Happened To Lorelai Gilmore
by fairy tale echo
Summary: five things fic: naturally AU, slightly dark in some places


Five Things That Never Happened to Lorelai Victoria Gilmore

I.

Dear Baby,

I promise you'll have a better life this way. God, I swore to myself I'd never start a letter that way and I just did. Maybe I'll cross it out and start over again. But…baby, it's just the truth.

From the moment I figured out the instructions and read that stupid little stick and found out you were coming, I loved you. I did. I knew that you'd be all mine, finally, all mine. I would never make the mistakes Richard and Emily had, I'd let you know every day of your life, no matter what, that I loved you.

And then everything went wrong.

Christopher looked at me with blank eyes and stood behind his parents and said that he was quite sure that I had been with Edwin Huntzberger at the Homecoming Dance, and that was just what he knew of, and that was that. Before Emily's mouth could even close, Christopher was shipped off to a fancy boarding school in London and Straub promised that if we ever tried to make a claim on paternity, he'd make sure the Gilmore name wasn't worth one penny in polite society.

Oh, Baby, this isn't what I wanted to tell you. Know this, though: Christopher Hayden **is** your father, and he was, I thought, a sweet, lovely guy. No matter what you might someday hear, remember those two truths.

I stopped going to school and didn't get out of bed and decided that once I had you, Baby, we'd run away and leave all this behind, we'd find a little town where everyone knew our names, no one there would judge me, and we'd be beloved and part of a big, extended family.

But, Baby, after Christopher stared silently at the wall behind my head, after all the girls I thought were at least my sort of friends forgot I existed, after my father wouldn't speak to me, even to ask me to pass the peas at dinner, after the night my mother actually curled up next to me in bed, patted my head and said, woodenly, "Lorelai, I think we shall manage something." I knew, I knew, that a town like that doesn't exist, anywhere, and even if it did, you and I were never going to make it there.

But still, Baby, still, I promised to never write this letter, to stay with you in the Gilmore house and find words again and my own legs, and make something new and good with you.

And then, after the labor, they placed you in my arms. You looked at me with such beautiful blue eyes, that asked me to give you the world and you were the most perfect and special thing I'd ever seen. And I didn't even know what I wanted to name you.

And that's when I knew, Baby, that I had to go. Because I was never going to be able to give you anything, much less the world. I knew if I didn't go, we'd be stuck in a life living hand to mouth and never having enough and always being outcast. Baby, you were so beautiful and perfect and amazing that I wanted more for you than that.

I know, material things aren't what you need most, believe me I know, but Baby, it's not just that. I'm not anyone's mother, not now and maybe I never will be. You were all about me, Baby: _my_ chance to escape, _my_ chance to be free, _my_ chance to do things right. But the moment they placed you in my arms, it wasn't about me anymore, it was about you. I couldn't be focused on me, me, me anymore. And right now, I don't know how to be focused on anything else.

So, Baby, I have to go. Emily, she was changed in some way too, the moment she saw you. I know, it seems impossible to believe but she was the only one ever, Baby, who never stopped looking me straight in the eyes, who never stopped thinking of me as Lorelai Gilmore, for better or worse. See, Baby, I think you and Emily Gilmore were destined for each other.

I love you, more than I've ever imagined possible. And this isn't the end, Baby. Someday, we're going to be together again.

Someday, that is, when we've both got names of our own.

Until then, I'll have you in my heart: and know that every day of your life and every single second of every single day of my life, I love you.

You're the best thing I've ever been a part of.

Your Mommy,

Lorelai Gilmore

II.

It's like cramps, only cramps magnified so intensely that it feels as if Freddy Kruger were squeezing your head.

They had told Lorelai this was going to happen, they'd explained the procedure in detail, actually, wanted to make sure that she knew everything that was going to happen during the procedure. _Procedure, procedure, procedure_ they kept calling it. Lorelai had started calling it that herself. It was, not surprisingly, easier to say than _abortion_.

New York doesn't require parental permission. Emily might have given it to her, but Lorelai can also her easily see Emily stiffening her spine and her upper lip and saying that _no daughter of hers_!

Well, "_no daughter of hers"_ is sort of the running theme of Lorelai's life. No daughter of Emily Gilmore would be lying here, on an uncomfortable bed, having a procedure known as an MVA, manual vacuum aspiration. No daughter of Emily Gilmore's would know about the way her cervix was now being dilated so that…

During the counseling session, they told Lorelai that even though New York didn't require parental permission she still had to attend mandatory counseling session before the procedure. That was where they had recommended she have someone accompany her to the procedure. She had told them, holding the counselor's gaze the whole time, that she didn't have anyone, that her parents and the baby's father could never know. She would take a taxi to the hotel room. It was all going to be fine, her mother thought she was in New York for the weekend with a girlfriend who thought Lorelai and Christopher were off for a romantic get-away.

The counselor had asked her if she knew what she was doing, if she had considered all her options, if she was sure this choice was the best for her and everyone involved.

"Yes," Lorelai had said levelly "this is for the best for everyone."

And she believed it. Knew it to be so.

What kind of life could she give a baby? Christopher would want to get married, God what a disaster that would be. Her parents would want her to give the baby up or keep her and the baby wrapped up forever in some hidden shame, their faces covered. Or she could run away with the kid, find some menial job and raise a kid as a kid herself; that was sure to be a recipe for success.

She could barely remember where she'd left her favorite bottle of nail polish and she never managed to stay awake during chemistry.

This was best for everyone.

Lorelai didn't cry once. She assured everyone at the clinic she'd be fine to take a taxi and she might even have made small talk with her driver, she couldn't quite remember the ride. It had hurt, a lot, which she'd expected, but, in the end, the pain wasn't anywhere near as bad as she'd expected.

Mostly all Lorelai felt was … nothing, an overwhelming numbness.

She slept all weekend in her hotel room, breathing through pain the first day and just being sore and shell-shocked the next.

When she returned to Hartford Sunday night, her lie had naturally been found out, and Emily was livid. Hell, so was Christopher, who believed she'd been fooling around on him. Neither believed she'd just needed a weekend in the city for her own reasons. She didn't protest when Chris broke up with her and she didn't relent when he tried to woo her back. Things between the two of them had come to their natural end. She protested like hell when Emily grounded her, though. Some things never change.

It would be a lie to say Lorelai never thought about what might have been, what her life would have been like with a baby but for the most part, she knew she'd made the right decision. She was never going to be stable enough to provide any kind of life for a child, and not just because she was 16. She wasn't cut out for that gig and the last thing the world needed was another person as emotionally stunted and narcissistically involved as she was.

She left home the day before she turned 18, just to give her parents something of a surprise, and she sent them postcards from any place she waitressed longer than two months.

There weren't many postcards, and Lorelai Gilmore never set foot in Connecticut again.

III.

"You did it Lorelai, oh, you **did** it, what a brave girl you are!" She heard the doctor shout, as if he were a long, long distance away.

She wanted to tell him she wasn't brave, she had been ripped apart and felt like she was dying and all she wanted was more drugs and brave people didn't feel that way ever, not even after a day of being in labor. They probably just smiled beatifically and asked to suckle their newborns at once.

"Let me see her," Lorelai gasped quietly, her voice like sandpaper.

"Lorelai, the nurses are cleaning your baby up to make sure he can breathe and is OK and then we'll bring him right over and you can hold him," her doctor's voice was smooth.

"No, I'm sorry there's been a Lifetime Television Movie mix-up, you've got the wrong baby. I'm having a girl."

"No Lorelai, I can assure you that the little bundle of joy who just arrived is a perfectly healthy and robust little boy. Congratulations!" Her doctor even sounded a little pleased with the revelation, as if Lorelai's entire universe hadn't been turned completely upside down.

A _boy_. What in God's name was she going to do with a boy? This wasn't what was supposed to happen at all. She was going to have a little girl, the sonograms had practically confirmed it. _(We can't be 100 certain Ms. Gilmore, but from the way the baby is laying it certainly looks as if you're having a little girl.) _And not just the sonograms, she'd felt all the way in her blood and bones that she was going to have a girl.

They'd be best friends, she and her little girl. They'd be somehow exactly the same and totally opposite. They would have movie nights and dance around the house listening to pop music and singing into their hairbrushes. Her little girl would be a fan of the Bangles and she'd never feel the way Lorelai had felt with Emily, like a constant failure. Lorelai would make sure that every day of her life, her little girl would know that her mother thought she was the best kid in the world, and that belief would make it true.

It was going to be the two of them against everyone, they'd have secret jokes and a private language, they'd be united in everything and never want to be separated.

Lorelai had known this, just _known_ it, in the place in your mind that has no words. Whenever she spoke to the baby, running her hands over her huge stomach, she used female pronouns. She talked about the dresses she'd make for her, once she learned how to, you know, sew. She'd went over what she'd say when her daughter brought home her first boyfriend.

She'd even, secretly, so secretly, began to refer to the two of them as the_ Gilmore Girls_.

But none of that was to be, because just a few feet away, they were cleaning up her baby boy to place in her arms. She hadn't even considered a boy's name, or what she would say when he wanted to toss a football around or woke up to sticky sheets. What was she going to do about puberty? What would she do when he started sneaking _Playboys _into the house? What about girlfriends and jock-straps? How was she going to teach him to be a good man?

She could hear her baby crying and she still felt like she'd been broken apart, now both mentally and physically. This wasn't how it was supposed to go at all. She wasn't prepared for this and she was going to be horrible at it.

Lorelai's plan for her baby girl had been simple: treat her just the exact way you wanted to be treated, the exact opposite of how Emily treated you. No balls, no white gloves, no country clubs, no proper lady restrictions.

But what in God's name was she going to do about a _boy_? Lying in her hospital bed, numb from drugs and pain, Lorelai rested her head on the flimsy paper pillowcase. She could admit it now, finally. She had nothing to teach a baby. She knew it.

She was 16 years old and she couldn't teach a baby a single thing. She had never planned on having to teach her little girl, not really, even with all those secret plans, she'd just lead by one wacky example after another and her little girl would grow into the woman Lorelai knew was waiting under her own skin. She wouldn't have to worry about being a bad parent, because she wouldn't _really_ be a parent, she'd just be Lorelai Victoria Gilmore: teenager unbound by society's conventions, living life out loud and on her own terms. That would be enough for her little girl, enough for both of them, the Gilmore Girls.

But it would never be enough for her son, to whom she had nothing to give. Her son, the only real surprise since the second she'd looked into Christopher's eyes, her son, the first element to finally make her feel out of her depth, her son, who would need a parent, would need someone to guide him, her son, who she'd never, ever planned for.

Tears were leaking out of the corners of her eyes. Emily was right. She couldn't do this. She'd sign the papers. She'd send him away. She'd do the right thing for this baby she'd loved and cherished for nine months. She'd give him a life worthy of him.

"Miss Gilmore," the nurse's voice was quiet. "Miss Gilmore, say hello to your little boy."

She wanted to tell the nurse to take him away, so she'd never have to face that little life she was sure to fail. But something compelled her to turn her head and open her eyes. Her arms seemed to be lifting themselves up for her baby boy without her consent. The nurse was smiling so brightly, she was so tired, she had been with him for what seemed so long. She could have this moment to explain why she'd never be the mommy, the family, the woman he needed her to be.

The nurse leaned down and placed him, somewhat awkwardly, in her arms. He was red, not pink at all, but a bright, scrubbed red. He held his mouth open in a long, hearty wail. "Hey little boy, hey," Lorelai said softly, almost a coo she'd suppose, gently bouncing her son in her arms.

He didn't stop his screaming but he did peek open his tiny, slits of eyes and look up at her. Blue eyes, just like hers, stared back at her, defying her to imagine that he wasn't a part of her, that he hadn't listened to all her songs and stories and dreams and plans.

That was the moment it hit her, the real, first, full force of her mother-love. This was her baby. This was her son. This was her life, her beginning. It suddenly made so much sense. All along, she'd been thinking that she was the one who was supposed to teach her baby. But that wasn't the deal at all.

He'd come to teach her.

"Hi Adam! Mommy is so glad to finally see you!"

IV.

"Are you ready?" Rory asked, adjusting the tiara on her mother's head.

There was a moment of uncharacteristic silence. "Earth to Lorelai? Are we having a Julia Roberts moment here?"

Lorelai blinked a few times before swiveling her head to her daughter. "You mean am I feeling like a hooker with a heart of gold on my wedding day?"

Rory rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "A _Runaway Bride_, moment, Mom, a _Runaway Bride_ moment."

"No way, there's definitely no Richard Gere in this story at all," Lorelai answered, smoothing her dress and staring at herself in the full-length mirror.

"Thank goodness, I think he was really awful in _Chicago_ and would completely ruin this special day."

"Oh come on, that tap dance sequence wasn't half bad, I mean you have to appreciate,"

"Mom," Rory began, placing her hands on her mother's shoulders and looking her straight in the face "are you all right?"

"Oh, Rory! Don't you think it's slightly natural that I'd be nervous? Lifetime commitment and Lorelai Gilmore here, people, we're oil and water!"

"Definitely, because you did such a poor job of being committed to raising me. Why, you were practically a dead-beat mom, I never saw you, you never stuck your neck out for me, you turned tail every time things were rough or we were in trouble, you,"

"Fine, fine, I get it," Lorelai interrupted.

"Mom, you can do this. You _want_ to do this and you _can_ do this. I know it. Now repeat it like you mean it."

"I _can_ do this," there was a pause. "I _want _to do this."

"All right, if you don't want to do this, say the word and we are out of here like Benjamin Braddock and Elaine Robinson." Rory's voice was serious and level.

"No, kid, you're right. This is it. Besides, Emily would never forgive me if I took off with her tiara. Let's go kiss the groom." Lorelai threw a smile that wasn't even a smirk at her daughter and prepared to walk down the aisle - to become Mrs. Max Medina.

Almost two hours into her reception, Lorelai heard a soft voice from behind her. "Can I finally have a dance with the bride?"

She took a deep breath and turned to face Luke. This moment should be perfectly natural, a good friend here at her wedding reception, wanting to dance and say congratulations and share the moment. Natural and normal; her friend Luke.

He was in a suit and without a baseball cap and he looked not just polished and out of place, but not at all like the man she'd seen behind a diner counter for the last six years, not even his distant cousin. "Well, now that Kirk has reminded me why the Lambada really should remain the _forbidden_, it looks like my dance card is open."

Luke held a hand out to her and Lorelai felt a shiver of something like expectation bubble in her stomach when she took it. She was fairly certain that on her wedding day she shouldn't be getting this feeling of anticipation for_ this_ man _this_ way.

"I don't know anything about the Lambada," Luke said, pulling Lorelai towards him, her train rustling as she moved forward. "but I can waltz."

"Waltz? Where did you learn how to do that, Diner-And-A-Dance School?"

"Yes, that's exactly where," his voice was his usual mocking monotone and he never broke his step, moving her slowly and precisely to the music.

And for a few seconds, for once, Lorelai Gilmore was totally silent as she felt Luke Danes waltz her around the dance floor at her wedding reception.

Lorelai swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to keep her voice casual when she spoke next. "So, you look snazzy today."

Luke smiled. "You know, I think your outfit is a little more remarkable."

"You don't think the white was too obvious?"

"You look lovely," Luke said simply.

She felt heat rush to her cheeks and her head throbbed. For a split second she heard Rory's voice in her ear, "_You _want_ to do this and you _can_ do this._" And then she felt an overwhelming wave of nausea roll over her. Suddenly everything was so wrong.

Luke's voice sliced through her thoughts. "You…you didn't use the chuppah."

No, she hadn't used the chuppah that Luke had spent countless hours crafting with his own hands, the minute he'd placed it in her front lawn, she had known that it wasn't meant for her to marry Max under. Besides, how could she possibly explain it to Max? "Hey, he didn't want to get a place setting, so this seemed like the next logical step!"

"Yeah," Lorelai's voice sounded strained to her own ears "We decided that it just wasn't right for the feel and, you know, there wasn't enough time, and, um, it was going to be too much work to get it to the gazebo, and it looked so good on my front lawn, it wasn't an insult or, well, it wasn't supposed to be,"

She would have gone on rambling forever if Luke hadn't interrupted. "Lorelai, it's fine, it wasn't a requirement, I just-" he trailed off.

Inside, she held her breath. "_Just what?_" she wanted to cry. Instead, she looked at her feet. She wasn't afraid of messing up the steps, Luke was doing a fine job of leading them both. Luke could _waltz_. The babbling turned on almost of its own accord. "Oh, we really liked it, _I _really loved it, we'll have barbecues under it, and play ring-around-the-rosy, and Rory can study out there, it totally belongs where it is, it's perfect and I love,"

Almost against her will, Lorelai raised her eyes to meet Luke's. He was staring at her so intently she could feel it in the tips of her toes. She stuttered. "I mean, it just occurred to me, I really, I mean I do love,"

And then everything was still and silent and perfectly, perfectly clear.

"_It's happening, it's happening, like in Sleeping Beauty, the world is actually stopping for this moment, it really is,_" Lorelai thought wildly.

But it was just the end of the song. "Thank you for," Luke's voice seemed tight and distorted. "the dance. And…congratulations, Lorelai." Luke leaned in and kissed her softly on both of her cheeks.

And then she was alone, in her wedding dress and tiara, on the dance floor at her wedding reception, Mrs. Lorelai Gilmore-Medina, watching Luke Danes walk away from her.

V.

You shouldn't be surprised, really, that Christopher's father would all but call your daughter a horrible mistake. You shouldn't be at all surprised, that your own father wouldn't even be able to justify standing up for you without being ashamed that he had. That's just how things happen with the Haydens and Gilmores.

So, here you are, out on the balcony of your old room, taking gasping breaths and trying not to shudder from the cold and the tears and the way you suddenly feel 16 and powerless again. This shouldn't be happening to you; you're a grown woman now, with a good life and an amazing kid, and a relationship with your parents that was finally starting not to totally and completely suck.

Yeah, it shouldn't be a surprise, but somehow it is, because you really thought, you did, that you were done with this.

But it's_ not_ a surprise when Chris climbs out onto the balcony with a bottle of tequila and smiles at you in that winsome _oh-Lore-what-can-we-do-those-crazy-adults _smile of boyish charm. It's not a surprise when he cajoles you into laughing about old times, teasing old memories out of you one by one, when he hands you the tequila, and says something nice about Rory.

See, that's how he really gets you, lures you back. He says something positive about the best thing you've ever done, and you feel flattered and praised and strong and you unfold right into his compliment, like a conquering heroine receiving her due from an adoring public. That man knows how to get to you, all right.

You aren't even surprised when he leans in to kiss you and when you kiss him back.

_This is how it's always been_, his tongue tells you.

_This is how it will always be_, his lips assure you.

_This is the life we created, this is the house you'll always be on the outside of_, his hands whisper, weaving through your hair.

And you _are_ 16 again, tasting the forbidden, thumbing your nose at everything expected and required of you. You are heedless and free of judgment.

You and Christopher stumble back, not from the tequila but from the kiss, from the weight of his parents' eyes, from shame you never look at too closely. Almost accidentally, your hand skids out and touches the balcony railing. And in that brief second before you lift your hand to touch Christopher's chest, you notice that the paint is beginning to chip off.

"Emily must never come out here, or she'd just never let such a thing happen," you think. But immediately after that comes another thought. "Painting, painting."

You are supposed to be somewhere tonight, Lorelai Gilmore. And it's not here, being kissed, it's not here, being exiled from a house you don't live in anymore, it's not here being humiliated by some asshole like Straub Hayden, who isn't fit to lick your daughter's shoes.

You reel away from Christopher, breaking the spell. His eyes are still sleepy and flirty when he looks at you. "What's wrong, Lore?"

_We're not sixteen anymore, Chris. We don't have anything to prove to our parents. We don't even have anything to rebel against anymore unless, frankly, it's that horrible sherbet desert Emily serves sometimes._

But you can't say this to him, because he would look rueful and bashful and say that had nothing to do with what he wanted from you or why you were out here kissing. And the damnedest thing is, he'd probably believe that.

You don't actually mean to say anything at all, really. You'll just say this is a bad idea, that neither one of you knows what you're doing, that this is a mistake and you should go inside. Imagine your shock when what blurts out of your mouth is, "Why didn't you come to Rory's 16th birthday party?"

As if there's a logical answer from the man who, in sixteen years, has made it to **one** of his daughter's birthdays and it was the one where she was still learning to walk.

Chris runs a hand through his hair and looks at you guiltily. "Lore, I hadn't moved out here yet, I was finishing stuff up out in California, making sure that when I actually moved here it would be with a real reason, for a real purpose, with something to offer not just … more of nothing!"

"If you had been able to actually make it, what would you have brought?"

Now Chris is looking at you like you've gone completely crazy. "What?"

"To _your daughter's birthday party,_" you say deliberately. "What would you have brought to _your daughter's birthday party_!"

He shrugs, almost spitefully. "Fucking Christ, Lorelai! A gift? A card? A cake? Some balloons? What?"

And then you know. This man would never bring ice to a party.

Rory is sad when Christopher leaves that night, as soon as you get back from Hartford. But she grins a little when he reminds her how close he'll be living. He gives you a stilted farewell hug and you know it's on the tip of his tongue to ask what the heck just happened and how can you put it back? But before he gets the chance, you tell him you have to call someone to apologize and you dash back into your house, where there is nothing to sneak away from, only your own life to embrace, leaving Rory alone to give her Dad a hug and kiss goodbye.

The next night, you are sitting on the floor of Luke's, listening to Taylor rattle the door and talk about pastels. Crouched in the dimness of the diner, you and Luke are biting down laughter. But you can see that his eyes are drifting nostalgically to his Dad's list, and then, to your shoulders and neck.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think Luke was going to kiss you.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think you wanted him to.

And then he is leaning in and you are catching your breath. He rubs his hand over his dad's list, as if he's gathering something from it. And he's so close to you that your arms are touching, ever so slightly and you feel his heart beating and yours tripping in return.

Luke fixes your roof and brings you extra bacon even when you don't ask and lets you help paint the most important space of his life.

_"Three hammers, Phillips-head screwdrivers and three boxes of nails in assorted sizes."_

Luke's voice in your head, repeating from memory his father's list, a concrete, physical tie to everything that makes him steady, dependable, and safe.

You are Lorelai Gilmore, 32 years old, and for the first time in your life, these sound like the most perfectly desirable elements imaginable in a man - no, in a _partner_.

Luke looks up from the list and your eyes catch. You know that he'll stay frozen in that position forever, falling into your eyes, but once you lean your head forward, just an inch, he moves to meet you.

Sinking into the kiss without a moment's hesitation, Luke's hands on either side of the counter, next to your head, you wind your arms around his neck and settle into this moment like you were born for it.

_You are going to love this man for the rest of your life_.


End file.
